"you know what my # 1 fantasy is? i used to think that one day, just not telling anyone, i could go off to some random place, and i just disappear, like you’ll never see me again."

tail end

(written on January 12, 2012)

Let’s try to recap the last quarter of 2011, shall we? I never am one to summarize the year that was. I can only do it using a two-week range, tops. Blame it on memory lapse and on laziness, but mostly on forgetfulness.

I wanted to start the year posting on my WordPress acount something poignant for all of you little buggers, but I decided to reserve my words to two people.

Here are scraps for you patient enough to read my blog. You are strange for allowing my blog to be part of your blog roll. Possibly we are kindred-strange. Or you’re just tickled pink to read about mishaps, mayhem, mistakes, mysteries, and meandearings happening to a stranger. All these plus the occasional magnificence happening in my neck of the woods.

Consider this my charity to you. As you read the accounts, you’ll probably start thinking, Thank goodness, I’m not as kalat as she is. Or I dodged a bullet. Or Sucks to be her. Consider this my charity because as a certain artist puts it, there is also cruelty in kindness.

a) I got accepted in an editing job in which I attended the five-day training, showed up on the sixth day for work proper, then quit that very same day. I had my reasons, two of which are my M.A. degree and the remuneration. Plus points: I am still friends with most of the people I’ve come to know there. I don’t know what they see in me; apparently,they enjoy my company. I was told my work station still has my name plate there.

b) I got myself another tattoo last December. Wait for a separate post about it. 🙂

c) I met up with some old-time friends and realized just how much we have in common and just how engulfing our differences are.

d) I’ve grown closer to around three people. Which is scary, you know? I’m like an orphan in that I blahblahblahblah. There, you get it?

e) I visited this orphanage close to my heart and brought some groceries and gifts with the help of friends. It was an adventure in itself.

Home

f) I think my dogs love me more. Either I am imagining it, or they’ve grown to tolerate my Elmyra moments. Although there are times Jomi seems to glare at me…

Jomi

g) M.A. classes are going great…without me! Hehe. I only have one subject for this semester. Already, I am feeling the consequences of my decision to take things turtle-slow when it comes to my M.A.. #suckstobemeiknow

h) There is that one text message from someone that had “Gie anak” which made me weepy.

i) It was the death anniversary, you know, shithood, blahblahblah

j) I’m going back to my love for graphic novels with the help of a generous loaner of books, haha! The best in the recent batch of readings so far: Habibi (Craig Thompson), Good-bye Chunky Rice (Craig Thompson), and Batman: The Killing Joke (Alan Moore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Set to isolate me from the real world further: Comic Book Tattoo, Arkham Asylum, and another set of rereadings of The Killing Joke (because Alan Moore is a god).

Batman: The Killing Joke

I don’t know a thing about graphic novels, their histories, and their direction in the coming years. My interest got peaked when I read Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World years back. That was my first brush with graphic novels, and it was such a sweet rush. Then came V for Vendetta, then Watchmen, and I found myself getting glassy-eyed over the inking, the pencilling, coloring, and the narrative thread all the time. Take for instance Justice League Reboot (The New 52). It’s your basic comic set-up: thin, compact, with superheroes and superheroines. The details and words eventually blow your mind. You find yourself looking at the art, and then you get glassy-eyed, and time seems to grow still, or it speeds up, and you don’t notice the world moving under your feet.

Craig Thompson's first graphic novel

k) That little matter about the end of the world beginning. I’m scared further for the people and animals I value. I’m scared for my L Shirotas, for the dogs I love, for the absence of music, for the primordial alphabet soup erasing language. I actually have scenarios in mind, and I plan to be with the kids if and when that happens. Yes, I take the Mayans very seriously. In high school, I studied their culture religiously. Even as early as that, we were told about this date. That is one of approximately nine or 10 things I can recall from high school.

l) I actually resolved to do five things this 2012. Of course, these five things won’t be shared here. I don’t want to be accountable to you when these aspirations don’t materialize. Suffice it to say that I am happy to have come up with those five things to strive for. (heads up: In between the writing of this draft and the posting of the acceptable version, I have already violated one of those five things #yessuckstobeme)

By Art Jonak

Conclusion:
I’m not one to say I’ll own 2012. Its ending is an even number, therefore I don’t trust it. And I’m writing this sentence at 2:22PM. I think 2012 is out to get me. Seriously. #manic

There you go, the last quarter of 2011 dished out to you. As Blind Melon puts it, “All I can say is that my life is pretty plain, I like watching the puddles gather rain.” And as The Joker puts it: “Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random, and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them? In a world as psychotic as this, any other response would be crazy!”